Monthly Archives: December 2013

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On Thursday President Obama signed into law the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a sweeping defense policy bill, which includes some improvements in terms of civil liberties and human rights on its previous two iterations. However, a number of provisions — as in the 2012 and 2013 NDAAs — should keep civil libertarians concerned.

State Dept whistleblower’s emails hacked, deletedA US State Department whistleblower whose personal email files contained allegations of abuse and wrongdoing has had his account hacked. Four years of potential evidence has been deleted, his lawyer announced. A computer attack of unknown origin appears to have targeted Richard Higbie, a criminal investigator with the Diplomatic Security Service who earlier this year accused the State Department of blocking his career advancement.

“the NSA gets to do something like intercepting 7 billion people all day long with no problems, and the rest of us are not even allowed to experiment for improving the security of own our lives without being put in prison or under threat of serious indictment. This is what [Thomas] Jefferson talked about when he talked about tyranny”

100 Years Later, The Federal Reserve Has Failed At Everything It’s TriedOn Dec. 23, 1913, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Owen Glass Act, creating the Federal Reserve. As we note its centennial, what has the Fed accomplished during the last 100 years? The stated original purposes were to protect the soundness of the dollar and banks and also to lessen the jarring ups and downs of the business cycle.

A Tool Consumers NeedThe Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently issued a report on “pre-dispute” arbitration, also known as forced arbitration. That is the ubiquitous corporate practice of requiring consumers to agree in advance to use arbitration for any dispute that arises from a company’s products or services, rather than go to court.

BofA’s legal costs mount in Countrywide mortgage fiascoFederal prosecutors want BofA to pay $864 million after the bank’s stinging defeat in a major civil fraud trial in October. A jury found BofA liable in a case centered on a Countrywide program called “The Hustle,” which churned out risky home loans before selling them to mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Top 25 Censored Stories from 2012-2013The presentation of this year’s Top 25 stories extends the tradition originated by Professor Carl Jensen and his Sonoma State students in 1976, while reflecting how the expansion of the Project to include affiliate faculty and students from campuses across the country and around the world-initiated several years ago as outgoing director Peter Phillips passed the reins to current director Mickey Huff-has made the Project even more diverse and robust.

​FED up? Hundred years of manipulating the US dollarThe mainstream media are keeping remarkably quiet about this key milestone. No doubt, they know only too well that growing millions of workers inside and outside the US are realizing that a century of central banking monopoly in the hands of a private clique of usurer banksters is enough.

The Supreme Court Just Took Away Your Right to Remain SilentOn Monday, in a case called Salinas v. Texas that hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves, the Supreme Court held that you remain silent at your peril. The court said that this is true even before you’re arrested, when the police are just informally asking questions. The court’s move to…

Californians outraged after police acquire military armored vehicle to patrol cityKevork Djansezian / Getty Images / AFP Police in Salinas, California are under fire after the department acquired a heavily armored military vehicle for SWAT team operations. The $650,000 vehicle was gifted to the Salinas Police Department from the government through the 1033 program, which redistributes used equipment to other agencies.

​Fracking opponents in Pennsylvania dealt rare victory by state courtThe Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a 2012 fracking law allowing gas companies to drill anywhere in the state without regard to local zoning laws is unconstitutional. The court’s decision called the state’s Marcellus Shale drilling law, Act 13, unconstitutional given restrictions it placed on municipalities’ rights.